Serious bettors and are consistently discussing value. Through familiarity they will continually look for an edge in the wagers they make in the hope of gaining an advantage over the sports book.
Naturally, it is not always easy to decide if you have genuine value, merely time will tell. You will either be profitable or unprofitable. Yet the idea of at least attempting to unearth an advantage is still an central issue.

In essence what you are searching for, via your own judgment, is a situation where a team, horse or contestant have a greater possibility of winning an event than their odds would reflect.
For instance you may well consider that a participant in a sprint has a 25% chance of winning the contest. Divide this by 100 for to reach a probability of 0.25. You can then change your probability into odds by dividing 0.25 into 1. This will leave you with odds of +400 or 5.00 (decimal/euro) or 4/1 (fraction).

In effect odds look at the likelihood of something not happening while probability examines at the chances of something happening.
So next you want to look at the market. If most of the market is hovering around 4/1 or less for this event – then you should not bet. This is a hard discipline to learn. You may feel that your bet will win by betting on this event but you shouldn’t because you are not getting value.

If, however, the odds on show at the bookmakers are 5/1, you would bet the event.

You may also want to build in a ’safety net’ for your own inaccuracy or bookmaker vig (built in profit margin). So you could reduce all odds on display at the bookmakers by e.g 10% or instead add 10% to your projected price for an contest.

Finding value in certain markets is harder than others. Some individuals like to give attention to small markets, maybe pool or darts. Other punters favor typical sports but in the minor leagues of that sport. Bettors do this because they feel they can achieve an edge because they think the bookmaker may not be fully able to cover all sports from an analysis and pricing standpoint and are consequently more liable to put up prices that are bigger than they really should be.

Bigger mainstream markets like English Premiership soccer can be hard for the bettor because it is a big market for the bookmaker and he has time to analyse all aspects of an forthcoming game.
Conversely, other conventional markets like MLB or NBA along with college matches offer up a huge amount of match ups which can leave the odds maker under pressure at times. Bear in mind it is not solely a matter of posting prices in basketball for example, each line has to be monitored and moved accordingly.

So If you are just beginning to formulate your sports betting strategies, then the suggestion is to find your sport, become an expert in that sport and then begin looking for the holy grail…value.